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Topic: Question (Read 2217 times)

I just checked my hive today. Looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself. Tons of bees, starting to build comb in a new box, saw eggs, saw brood, saw honey, saw pollen, blah, blah, blah, I didn't see the queen however, but I am pretty sure she's there. Here's the question...The ladies are building excess comb on the bottom of the frames that reach the top of the bottom most super (two boxes total on the hive), and there was also a chunk of comb on top of a frame of the top box (right beneath the inner cover). Is this a normal thing? Would it be ok to keep it there or scrap it off? My first thought when I saw it was supercedure cells because one or two of them looked like supercedure cells however they were full of uncapped honey and I didn't see eggs in any of the empty cells. Not all of that excess comb looked like supercedure cells. I'd say one or two looked close, but not close enough. I wish I had a digital camara so I could show what it looks like, but I guess now I know what to ask for my birthday. Thanks.

I usually scrape it off. I don't like it when it takes 4 ounces of C4 and a garrott to get the boxes apart. Honey running all over the place. They frequently rebuild it and the queen deposits drone eggs in those areas. If it's new brilliant white wax with only honey in it, I save it to chew like gum during the day. But look it over closely before popping it into your mouth. Those stingers are really tough to get out of your tongue!! bahahahahahahah

Sweet...I like that sound of that. And it was like a war to work those bees today. Those were some angry women....but what else is new...my whole house is filled with angry women :roll: Thanks for the reply.

The langstroth hive reduces burr comb and propolis...REDUCES not eliminates. There is always a little comb whenever I inspect. I just cut it off and save it for the wax. As long as it doesn't build up to the point that in pulling the cover off you lift the hive off the groung it's fine to find a little.

I leave the burr on the bottom of frames. I want to encourage the queen to move from box to box as much as possible. I scrape it off of the top frames and the inner cover so I can get the cover off easier.

So I went into the hive today for a routine inspection and scrapped off the excess comb that was on the top frames. Let me tell you what...we have a lot of clover going on right now and that was definately what I got a taste of today. Nothing like your first taste of your own honey. WAAHHOOOO!!!! :P

Some of you might remember my situation with the bottom super not filling up. Well, still no good. I left it on the bottom and granted there are bees down there doing who knows what (partying probably) comb is still not being drawn out. The top most box is packed and even though there are eggs in some of the comb from the top box, it isn't much. I remembered the foundation in the lower box was the plastic stuff and there wasn't any kind of coating on it. I thought that this could be the problem, but then as I was inspecting the top box, I saw that SOME of that comb was the same type of foundation (again without coating) and they built on that just fine.

So...my potential solution to the problem. Considering the top box had both wax and plastic foundations and the bees built quite a nest with that, I took some of the plastic foundation frames out, and replaced it with some duragilt foundation frames. I would have replaced the entire bunch of frames but I only had some much excess laying around. I guess we'll see how that works out. I didn't want to swap the boxes just yet, being that the majority of those who answered my posts agree that the bees work top to bottom. I think if what I did doesn't work out, I'll give them a swap.

When honey is coming in and they cap the honey, bees often build extra combs between boxes.

You get advantage from this if you keep new foundations to be build that they can direct they pressure on them.

If you give them free space to build drone combs, they do not try to put them every where. Take from Langstroth lower part 1/3 away and let dronecombs be there. Varroa go there in when drone larvas are capped and you cut them away. So you can catch 50% from mites.